Poems - Household Edition | Page 9

I'll be plain with you;
In my palace of Castile,

I, a king, for kings can feel.

There my thoughts the matter roll,
And solve and oft
resolve the whole.
And, for I'm styled Alphonse the Wise,
Ye shall not fail for sound
advice.
Before ye want a drop of rain,
Hear the sentiment of Spain.
You have tried famine: no more try it;
Ply us now with a full diet;
Teach your pupils
now with plenty,
For one sun supply us twenty.
I have thought it thoroughly over,--

State of hermit, state of lover;
We must have society,
We cannot spare variety.
Hear
you, then, celestial fellows!
Fits not to be overzealous;
Steads not to work on the
clean jump,
Nor wine nor brains perpetual pump.
Men and gods are too extense;

Could you slacken and condense?
Your rank overgrowths reduce
Till your kinds
abound with juice?
Earth, crowded, cries, 'Too many men!'
My counsel is, kill nine in
ten,
And bestow the shares of all
On the remnant decimal.
Add their nine lives to
this cat;
Stuff their nine brains in one hat;
Make his frame and forces square
With
the labors he must dare;
Thatch his flesh, and even his years
With the marble which
he rears.
There, growing slowly old at ease
No faster than his planted trees,
He may,
by warrant of his age,
In schemes of broader scope engage.
So shall ye have a man of
the sphere
Fit to grace the solar year.
MITHRIDATES

I cannot spare water or wine,
Tobacco-leaf, or poppy, or rose;
From the earth-poles to
the Line,
All between that works or grows,
Every thing is kin of mine.
Give me agates for my meat;
Give me cantharids to eat;
From air and ocean bring me
foods,
From all zones and altitudes;--
From all natures, sharp and slimy,
Salt and basalt, wild and tame:
Tree and lichen,
ape, sea-lion,
Bird, and reptile, be my game.
Ivy for my fillet band;
Blinding dog-wood in my hand;
Hemlock for my sherbet cull
me,
And the prussic juice to lull me;
Swing me in the upas boughs,

Vampyre-fanned, when I carouse.
Too long shut in strait and few,
Thinly dieted on dew,
I will use the world, and sift it,

To a thousand humors shift it,
As you spin a cherry.
O doleful ghosts, and goblins
merry!
O all you virtues, methods, mights,
Means, appliances, delights,
Reputed
wrongs and braggart rights,
Smug routine, and things allowed,
Minorities, things
under cloud!
Hither! take me, use me, fill me,
Vein and artery, though ye kill me!
TO J.W.
Set not thy foot on graves;
Hear what wine and roses say;
The mountain chase, the
summer waves,
The crowded town, thy feet may well delay.
Set not thy foot on graves;
Nor seek to unwind the shroud
Which charitable Time

And Nature have allowed
To wrap the errors of a sage sublime.
Set not thy foot on graves;
Care not to strip the dead
Of his sad ornament,
His
myrrh, and wine, and rings,
His sheet of lead,
And trophies buried:
Go, get them where he earned them when
alive;
As resolutely dig or dive.
Life is too short to waste

In critic peep or cynic bark,
Quarrel or reprimand:
'T will
soon be dark;
Up! mind thine own aim, and
God speed the mark!
DESTINY
That you are fair or wise is vain,
Or strong, or rich, or generous;
You must add the
untaught strain
That sheds beauty on the rose.
There's a melody born of melody,

Which melts the world into a sea.
Toil could never compass it;
Art its height could
never hit;
It came never out of wit;
But a music music-born
Well may Jove and
Juno scorn.
Thy beauty, if it lack the fire
Which drives me mad with sweet desire,

What boots it? What the soldier's mail,
Unless he conquer and prevail?
What all the

goods thy pride which lift,
If thou pine for another's gift?
Alas! that one is born in
blight,
Victim of perpetual slight:
When thou lookest on his face,
Thy heart saith,
'Brother, go thy ways!
None shall ask thee what thou doest,
Or care a rush for what
thou knowest,
Or listen when thou repliest,
Or remember where thou liest,
Or how
thy supper is sodden;'
And another is born
To make the sun forgotten.
Surely he
carries a talisman
Under his tongue;
Broad his shoulders are and strong;
And his
eye is scornful,
Threatening and young.
I hold it of little matter
Whether your jewel
be of pure water,
A rose diamond or a white,
But whether it dazzle me with light.
I
care not how you are dressed,
In coarsest weeds or in the best;
Nor whether your
name is base or brave:
Nor for the fashion of your behavior;
But whether you charm
me,
Bid my bread feed and my fire warm me
And dress up Nature in your favor.

One thing is forever good;
That one thing is Success,--
Dear to the Eumenides,
And
to all the heavenly brood.
Who bides at home, nor looks abroad,
Carries the eagles,
and masters the sword.
GUY
Mortal mixed of middle clay,
Attempered to the night and day,
Interchangeable with
things,
Needs no amulets nor rings.
Guy possessed the talisman
That all things from
him began;
And as, of old, Polycrates
Chained the sunshine and the breeze,

So did
Guy betimes discover
Fortune was his guard and lover;
In strange junctures, felt, with
awe,
His own symmetry with law;
That no mixture could withstand
The virtue of
his lucky hand.
He gold or jewel could not lose,
Nor not receive his ample dues.

Fearless